


monsters

by NoScrubs12345



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 23:41:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1244671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoScrubs12345/pseuds/NoScrubs12345
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a child, Sirius discovers what real monsters are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	monsters

Once, when he is seven and a constantly reminded he is the bane of his parents’ existence, Sirius sneaks an old dusty tome that still looks like new from Father’s study. It’s leather-bound and there is a curious symbol laid onto the cover in silver filigree. It shines in the full moon light that streams through the window, illuminating the room with an ethereal silver glow. Sitting cross-legged on his bed, he slowly traces it, once, twice, three times, before opening the book at random. He gasps at what he sees and closes the book hurriedly, somehow managing to cut a finger on one of the crisp pages. He tastes blood as he sucks on the cut and furrows his brow when he musters the courage to look again. Finding the page, he stares at the picture, an ancient woodcut of a man-wolf on all fours, infant held in his jaws, mangled corpses strewn around him as he runs from a farmhouse.

Sirius, finger held to his mouth still, runs a finger over the werewolf and his victim. He studies the carving, eyes drifting to the passage beside it detailing the werewolf’s terrifying and appalling nature. He cringes as the book describes the proper “disposal” of such “unwholesome” creatures and closes the book when the book calls all lycanthropes “vermin, like many a Muggle.” Finally taking his finger from his mouth, he examines the cut with a world weary sigh. The book is something his parents would enjoy, he thinks, but it leaves him feeling sick to his stomach.

He flops back onto his pillow, kicking the book to the floor with a dull and empty “thud,” and stares out at the pale and ghostly full moon. Before sleep can take him, he decides it’s not werewolves that are the monsters in this world, but ill-bred people like his family.


End file.
